Episode 0026: Story Time

I had to stop by Yew and snoop everyone looking for the mandrake, pig iron and bandages I so desperately need for my
non-practice of healing, necromancy and magery. Now, for some people this is a dangerous place where murderers and thugs
like to trade blows (physical, verbal and sometimes emotion *sheds a single tear). For others it is a place to do
business.

Two such people were before me. A man on an ethereal horse, and a woman on a lesser hiryu. The woman was looking to replace
her clumsy and splintered wooden sword for a new, more effective one. I snooped her male counterpart's pack and I saw them.
Two Yew-made spell channeling bokuto with no penalties. These were obviously wizards I was dealing with. No telling the
danger I faced. I reached for one, but I was too slow. They ran towards the bank; I followed.

I had fumbled once. I wasn't going to again. I snuck up, and grabbed the first one in his back and started running. The
guards hadn't noticed me. I was free to walk around the city still. I started sneaking my way back hoping they hadn't left
yet.

Turns out the bokuto I grabbed wasn't the one the woman wanted to buy so they were still at the bank and talking about me!
The trade had gone through, the man had his gold. I started to ease my way over to the woman, and then: *you have been
revealed*!

I reach in her pack. It isn't insured. I grab it.

Again, the guards fail in their duty. I calmly walk into Empath Abbey to show the bankers my new toys. The traders seem to
have taken exception to my actions and follow me in to confront me. I listen to their pleas(insults). I'm not unwilling to
return goods; as long as I walk away with something that I can make use of.

I explain to them that I don't like the coloring of my quiver and that I would gladly trade it, and the bokuto for a quiver
of the color of my choosing. The buyer couldn't provide me with what I wanted, but she offered me an alternative. Her
broken (spell channeling with penalty) bokuto and a full container of powder of fortification. Now, I have no need for these
weapons, but the powder most certainly could be useful. I accept and hopefully sent her on her way with a smile. The
seller, however, wasn't so pleased.

It turns out they weren't his weapons, but a guildmates and he was selling them for him. He confronted me about this in the
evening. Along with the original owner of the swords. By this time someone had already generously dyed my quiver for me, so
I offered the same trade as earlier, but for my royal leggings of embers.

Apparently somewhere along the line I asked him how long he had been playing, how much money he had in the bank currently,
how much his in-game assets were worth, and represented myself as a "trammy". Somewhere in the middle of his jabbering he
declined my offer (quite rudely).

He walked away.

I begin talking to the original owner of the sword and he tells me he doesn't have the dye. Neither he or the one I stole
it from are willing to accept anything sort of me returning it for absolutely no gain. So now the bokuto is sitting in my
bank box. Around this point I told the original owner that his friend was "quite classy". Now, I may of yelled this without
knowing because he immediately was charging the gate and rambling about how I'm "trash" because I steal.

Now, I really have to ask, why is it that people place moral implications on stealing in-game (in the context of the skill,
not scamming) more heavily than on murder, or combat in general? Yes, behind every character is a player and we're all
playing the game in a way that we enjoy, but how does a person who willingly goes to a long-standing (read: original)
ruleset, knowing full-well what kind of people are there and what they are allowed to do, bring real life into the
arguement? I didn't kill them and take it; steal it off their still warm and twitching body. Would the murderer who just
killed someone because of the hat they were/n't wearing and loots them not in the wrong? Did they somehow earn it through a
kill? Is it because thieves aren't a common thing to deal with?

I'm not coming down on reds. I've gone red three times with my thief. A combatant just isn't my preferred PvP
playstyle.

I'd like to know if the hate I get slammed with as a thief is common, are we really considered "worse" than reds by the
community at large? What's with the smack talk? Because I'm still blue and in the guard zone with their 74 pig iron?